Say what you will about the Leftover Royals, but every once in a while they do provide a bit of a laugh. Not for the reasons they think, like appearing on American Idol, more for being a tad confused about where they are and what century it is and having absolutely no understanding of the modern world.
According to the British press, the Palace fears that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are plotting to establish a glittering alternative monarchy somewhere in the Cotswolds. A “rival royal court”, they brief, as though the couple are secretly commissioning tapestries, hiring jesters, and interviewing candidates for Groom of the Stool duties.
It’s nonsense, of course. A royal court requires a treasury, a palace, ladies-in-waiting and courtiers, and a load of aristos chomping at the bit to plonk them on the throne in order to pay less taxes or something. Harry and Meghan have made no efforts to secure any of these, unless a mansion in Montecito counts as a palace, in which case the world’s pop stars are also setting up rival courts - especially ones the public refer to as Queen Bey, or Princess of Pop, or the King, or … you get my drift.
The Sussexes, it’s always good to remind ourselves, don’t cost the taxpayer half a billion pounds a year, have no Sovereign Grant, no duchy income, no ladies‑in‑waiting, no footmen, no equerries, and absolutely no one to squeeze their toothpaste. They have to buy their own groceries, pay their own bills, and even make their own decisions, rather than be dictated to by the Grey Men in suits who seem to command the king.
Perhaps the monarchy finds the idea of a rival court oddly thrilling.
Ingrid Seward told us that the Mountbatten-Windsors’ lives are “joyless” but perhaps they’re also deathly dull. Human beings need meaningful occupation. Ribbon-cutting and scooting around the grounds of Windsor Castle isn’t exactly meaningful, and the Leftovers aren’t allowed to sink into a life of cocaine-fuelled debauchery just to feel something. Indulging the fantasy that Harry and Meghan are plotting a coup by podcast probably gives them a reason to get up in the morning. If they weren’t such horrible people - housing their tenants in mouldy homes, charging the NHS to park ambulances during a pandemic, protecting a man credibly accused of sexual abuse - with such horrible friends - Bishop Peter Ball, Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein - one might almost feel sorry for them.
The press - and some of the public - encourages the family in their mad fantasies, because they adore a narrative in which Meghan is secretly masterminding a global takeover. It allows them to avoid asking why (ex) Prince Andrew is still under the protection of the King, whether the taxpayer is getting value for money for the half a billion pounds a year the royals cost us or whether they should be exempt from certain laws and all accountability. Or why the actual monarchy seems incapable of generating excitement without Meghan and Harry. It’s not that the British public is clamouring for coat‑dress updates, it’s that the institution has also become so dowdy, so beige, so terminally uninspired that even the fantasy of a rival court is a welcome one.
I think the Firm knows how uninspiring it is. A confident institution wouldn’t fear a couple who left six years ago and spend their time raising children, making documentaries, running businesses and a philanthropic organisation. A confident institution wouldn’t need to invent medieval rivalries to feel important.
But here we are: the Mountbatten‑Windsors fretting about imaginary courts, the press breathlessly reporting it, and a handful of people nodding along as though any of this makes sense in the 21st century.